They improved iTunes quite a bit. The one feature I've been wanting for quite some time is a party shuffle mode - and they put it in.

Also, they are now promoting some new "Apple Lossless" format and the ability to convert WMA to unprotected AAC.

And a free weekly download from the music store that I think will end up sucking some people in. I have avoided the iTunes store because of the DRM, but if they are going to give stuff away for free (and I like what they are giving away) I'll end up with at least a small collection of freebies.

-Mike

How does the free weekly download work ?

Do I actually have to buy anything ?

Do I actually have to buy anything ?

Nope, download and install iTunes and use it to go to the store on tuesdays. They are supposed to have a new song up every week starting next tuesday. They are actually doing a free song everyday this week (today's is a Courtney Love track). You do have to setup an account which requires a US address and you might have to give them a credit card number (they already had mine so I'm not sure), but you don't have to buy anything to get the free song.

-Mike

Who knows when it will be fixed.

Does anyone know how many tunes you can toss at iTunes? Currently, I have my mp3s backed up on a drive and they are organized in folders by artist > album etc. If I ever had to rebuild the empeg that way, it would take me a year to organize it. I'm leaning towards using the ftp from empeg meathod, but I know that will create several folders with a ton of FIDs in them... Would iTunes handle being pointed to those folders? I guess the lack of .mp3 at the end (WinXP) would probably kill that idea... damn, how to get use out of some FID folders?

I've heard in the past that iTunes had a limit of 32k songs. that was prior to v4, though. I'm not sure if they up'ed that limit since then.

EDIT: Aha! According to Apple, they did remove that limitation in v4. they don't, however, say if there is a different limitation now.

Well, 32,000 is plenty for the near future.. but I still doubt it would like a folder full of FIDs, so I guess my PC based mp3 collect/empeg backup won't be playable..

Yeah, I seriously doubt that iTunes would like the FIDs. Another method would be to create a sym-link tree on your empeg of your mp3s and ftp those to your machine. I don't remember the name of the program that creates those symlinks, though... It's been so long since I did it. If I remember correctly, though, that method preserves the playlist/folder structure of your empeg.

Ah found it - mirrordb.

mirrordb is kind of old, though, and (to my knowledge) does not know how to handle FID subdirectories. I was going to modify it one of these days to do so, but I never got around to it. (That and I am an utterly horrible coder...)

I think it's marketing meant specifically to divert attention away from the growing number of anti-competitive lawsuits around "FairPlay."